


All we do is live in fear of Tommy Innit.

by BecausePlot



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: (kinda), Ambiguous/Open Ending, DreamSMP - Freeform, Gaslighting, Gen, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Manipulation, Metaphors, Unreliable Narrator, and lots o' them, dream is a bad dude in this sorry, im just bad at everything lets be real, narration-heavy, very brief mention of suicidal intentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BecausePlot/pseuds/BecausePlot
Summary: If there was one thing Dream could say for certain, it was that the world started simple.And then one 'Tommy Innit' arrived.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Sapnap & GeorgeNotFound, Tommyinnit & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 10
Kudos: 104





	All we do is live in fear of Tommy Innit.

**Author's Note:**

> Real quick TW for manipulation and gaslighting incase you missed it in the tags! Stay safe out there!
> 
> Beta-read by my lovely friend Jem as always. Thank you fren! <3 :D

If there was one thing Dream could say for certain, it was that the world started simple. It had been a land for him to make his own. It was just him and George for a while, Sapnap and Bad joining in not too much later. Then, friends of friends started to make their way over, houses were erected, and before Dream knew it, a community started. 

They needed someone to lead said community, to be the stonemason who laid the foundations and maintained the power the burgeoning nation had acquired. It was only fitting that Dream take up the responsibility, for it was  _ he  _ who settled this land,  _ he _ who paved the first roads,  _ he  _ who slayed monster hoards that threatened their territories,  _ he  _ who was widely known for his cunning and charm. No one else was more prepared to lead than him. 

So the empire of the Dream SMP was born.

And Dream took his new position to heart. Once he was declared overseer of the SMP, he spent the following night sitting in his study alone, thinking,  _ What is it that my people need?  _

By dawn, he had whittled down the list to three simple things.

First on the itinerary was peace of mind. He provided that to his people easily enough by declaring a handful of laws meant to punish thieves and griefers. Crime would not run rampant in the streets of his SMP.

Second was equality. Also a very manageable task. He outlawed the use of industrialized farms and operations, machines that would give the user a clear technological advantage over anyone else. Additionally, monopolies were banned. Resources would be shared as needed. Anyone caught hoarding or cornering the market would be penalized. 

Last was stability. 

That was a trickier one. What made a nation ‘stable’, and how could Dream implement this into his SMP? He sought counsel from his closest friends, the other founders of the land, George, Sapnap, and Bad. Together, they decided that the SMP would only allow trusted individuals, family and close friends. It would keep the community tight-knit, less prone to troublemakers. 

Another thing that was indicative of a stable nation, Dream decided, was strength within the ruling authority: in this case, himself. He would be the rock on which this land rested, and in order to do that, he had to maintain control. He had to maintain respect. He had to maintain  _ power _ . A stable nation did not have quarrels within its government over who was in charge. No, a stable nation had a fair, firm ruler standing at the wheel. 

So that was what he would become. He donned his mask and his armor whenever he went outside. He strolled down the boardwalk with his shoulders set to balance the burden that had been bestowed upon him and kept his chin up so that he might look to the horizons. He watched the sun rise over his land each morning from the roof of the community house, an easy smile on his lips.

For a  _ very _ long time, life was quiet in his SMP. Dream provided the three keystones to his people, and he maintained his hold on the land. 

This was perfect. This was ideal. 

He was content. He was in control.

And then one ‘Tommy Innit’ arrived.

He was granted entry due to having family within the SMP, namely his brothers Wilbur Soot and Tubbo, and Wilbur’s son Fundy, who all lived in a caravan out in the eastern woods. They’d asked Dream if Tommy could join them, and without giving it much thought, Dream allowed it. Tommy was part of their family, after all. And, yes, the population had grown quite a bit over the past few months, but Dream wasn’t worried. How much harm could one person do?

A lot. One person could do a  _ lot  _ of harm.

Tommy Innit was a problem, a thorn in Dream’s side. Within the first week of his citizenship, Tommy managed to break just about every single anti-thievery and anti-griefing law Dream had ever passed. Furious, he had Tommy thrown in jail three times.

Tommy escaped jail three times.

Dream was at a loss as to how in the world he was supposed to control this... _ child _ . He was unlike anything Dream had encountered during his time as overseer of his SMP. Tommy rattled the pillars Dream had built to keep the peace and maintain his control, blustering through without a care in the world. He was loud, vulgar,  _ unpredictable _ , and worst of all, he wasn’t swayed by authority. Dream would loom over Tommy with his glowing netherite armor and gilded axe, and Tommy would stare right back through the eyes of Dream’s unfazeable porcelain face and call him a “stupid green bitch”, nose wrinkling with his sharp, metal mouth smile. No amount of reprimanding, imprisoning, or reasoning got the boy to slow down, let alone stop. 

Dream was simultaneously baffled, enraged, and exhausted.

He eventually gave an ultimatum: behave or be banned. Much to his relief, it appeared to work, and the whirlwind that was Tommy Innit retired to the eastern woods, finally joining his family in the caravan for good. Feeling as though he had seen enough of Tommy to last him decades, Dream left him and his family to their own devices, focused on getting a grip on the startled community, repaving damaged roads and settling his people. 

He visited the eastern woods only if necessary. So far, all he’d had to do was take down an establishment that violated the regulations on resource farms and squash an attempted potion monopoly. He gave them all a few warnings, made them reimburse all the materials they had squandered, and continued on his way, improving his SMP.

The growing population of his SMP meant that Dream had a lot more people to manage, to know, to  _ understand _ so that he might organize them if need be, maintain structure within the nation. The moments he shared with his friends were few and far inbetween unless it was for work. He spent his days clearing more land for new homes, and most of his nights were used to plan out new roads and to patrol for monster hordes. 

Dream didn’t notice the spark of revolution that had started in the eastern woods until that spark had grown into an inferno. Leading the charge was Wilbur Soot, the oldest of the three present brothers. His supporters consisted of Eret, Fundy, Tubbo, and…

Tommy. 

Tommy Innit, the biggest menace to ever mar the lands of his SMP, stood at Wilbur’s side at the gates of ‘L’Manburg’, looking Dream right in the eye and smirking like the little shit he was as his brother read off their declaration of independence. The boy was wreathed in the red-orange gleam of late afternoon, the sun’s flare reflected in his unfearing gaze.

Dream declared war at dawn the next day.

He assembled those who he believed could be of value in this fight for stability and control. He, of course, had his most trusted companions - George and Sapnap - at his side, along with Punz, a long-standing member of his SMP who was good with an axe and as loyal as a man could be. Through some effective raids on the rebels’ stashes of supplies mixed in with a touch of arson, they easily secured themselves as the superior force in terms of gear.

To the rebels, their lack of essentials mattered little. They fought with whatever they had, stubbornly pressing onward. For the most part, Dream and his forces could keep the scoundrels at bay with an unrelenting volley of arrows. During one particular battle, they cornered the rebels in Tommy’s old house on the edge of the forest.

For a moment, it seemed as though the revolution ended here.

But out came Tommy Innit, shield raised as he rushed to their position at the top of the blackstone tower, screaming profanities the whole way.

Dream scoffed, nocked another fire-tipped arrow, and took careful aim at the approaching ‘soldier’.  _ This child has a deathwish -  _

An enemy arrow caught Dream in the shoulder, and while his armor took the brunt of it, the pain was startling. While he had been focused on getting a clear shot on Tommy, Fundy and Tubbo had emerged from their cornered position, firing arrow after arrow. Backing up Tommy’s rush were Wilbur and Eret, each wielding an iron sword and shouting as well.

In the end, the battle was lost. Dream and his companions retreated to the community house, battered and bruised.

Dream was in his room with Sapnap and George later that night, the three of them sitting on the edge of his bed as Sapnap helped Dream wrap up his wounded shoulder. 

“I just don’t  _ get _ it,” Dream ranted, messaging his forehead with a bloody-knuckled hand in the hopes it might stave off his mounting headache. “Where did we go wrong? How did they get that advantage over us? We had the high ground, w-we had them cornered! We should’ve gotten them!”

George huffed. “It’s that ‘Tommy’ kid. He gave his friends the chance they needed by running out into the middle of the field and drawing our fire.” 

Sapnp gave a tug on the bandages and started to tie them off. “It was actually really smart, if you think about it.”

“Don’t compliment the enemy,” Dream snapped, shooting him a look.

“Hey, I’m just callin’ it like I see it,” his friend defended, raising his hands in surrender. “You gotta admit, it was a pretty ballsy move. That takes guts.”

“Or a serious lack of brain function.”

Sapnap and George just chuckled, ignoring Dream’s pout. His shoulder was soon all properly dressed, and they left him to sulk with a pat on the back and a kind, “Goodnight.” Dream was happy to return the phrase with equal warmth.

As the weeks went on, Dream’s fiery wrath began to simmer into worry when the rebels from the eastern woods started to wave their flag in victory over more and more battles. With a leader like Wilbur and a right hand man like Tommy, Dream was going to have to consider alternative methods; and as the situation became more dire, Dream found himself uncaring of the lengths to which he would have to go.

That was how he came to his solution: Eret.

Eret had been a member of the Dream SMP for many years now. Dream knew him well, for Dream always took the time to get to know his people on a personal level. Again, it made helping them and organizing them for tasks far easier. It allowed him to play to their strengths.

It allowed him to access their weaknesses too.

Eret always had a knack for pretty things: shimmering treasure and shiny weapons, clinquant words and tinsel titles. It didn’t matter that an honorific such as ‘king’ didn’t mean anything unless Dream  _ decided _ that it meant something. The idea was just far too enticing to the man.

Twisting and pulling the threads he’d coiled around Eret was just as easy as slashing his axe through Tommy’s leg in the Final Control Room.

It was also just as fun.

Dream delivered what he perceived to be a fatal blow when he laced the ground within the rebel’s walls with TNT and tossed a stick of dynamite into their fields. He watched with satisfaction as the earth cried out in anguish; he smiled at the sight of the revolutionaries retreating to the river.

Before, they had no food, no armor, and no weapons. Now, they had no friends and no land to call their own. L’Manburg was nothing but a smoldering crater and a white flag hung on a crumbling parapet.

Dream slept easy that night with the knowledge that the revolution was dying out, the fire sputtering and fading to embers.

But then one ember in particular decided he’d had enough. 

Hobbling on a wounded leg, Tommy Innit stormed up to Dream while he and Wilbur were negotiating the terms of surrender. The boy challenged him to a one-on-one duel for L’Manburg’s independence. 

Dream laughed -  _ actually _ laughed! - and asked with a smile, “Are you sure you want to do that, Tommy?”

And that ember, that spark, that flame - it stared right back at him. “I want nothing else than the chance to put an arrow between your eyes, Dream.”

For a moment, the ruler of the Dream SMP felt ice in his veins.

The duel commenced at sundown. Dream shed his netherite armor and took up a simple bow and a half-full quiver of arrows. He checked the clip on the straps of his porcelain face, rolled out his shoulders, and dismissed the thudding of his heart and the sweat on his brow as nothing more than exhaustion from the past several weeks. 

Wilbur counted paces. Meanwhile, Dream counted breaths, let the white noise in his mind overtake him as the instinct of battle took control of his muscles. The moment the word, “FIRE!” reached his ears, all thought vanished, and he was nothing but hands on a bow and arrow, nocking, aiming, releasing - 

An arrowhead bolted straight for his face. Dream just barely managed to jerk himself to the side so the arrow clipped his mask on its edge. There was a clinking shatter right by his ear accompanied by a sharp sting, but he didn’t care. Instead of fretting over the warmth running down the side of his head, he put an arrow in Tommy’s stomach and watched him tumble over the side of the boardwalk into the stream below. 

Dream turned around and walked away. He barely processed the horrified shouts of the boy’s friends as they dove into the water to fish him out, barely acknowledged his own friends as they asked him if he was okay.

All he could think about was the gaze of the flame staring him down at the other end of the boardwalk and how he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. With luck, Tommy Innit would be dead.

...He was not. Somehow, that stubborn little child clawed his way to recovery. 

But that didn’t matter. Dream had put him in his place, shown Tommy once and for all that he was not someone to be messed with, that  _ he  _ was the one in charge around here.

...He had  _ not _ . A week later, he found himself approached by a sour-faced Tommy. The boy clearly hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries - he had an arm curled over his stomach, and his shoulders hunched from the pain - but he stood before Dream nonetheless and greeted him with a blustery, “Now listen here, you smiley green bastard…”

And Dream? He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do. No matter what he said or what he did, Tommy Innit was always there with his metal mouth grin and profuse profanities to spit in his face and shift the scales. He wasn’t a mere boy, oh no, he was a firestorm, a force of nature, something wild and uncontainable. His flame ate away at the foundations Dream had laid, threatened his power and position. 

Tommy Innit, he came to realize, would be his downfall, and there wasn’t a single thing he could do to stop him other than outright kill him.

...But perhaps he didn’t need to. 

Tommy was a different breed of person. He had ambition and passion in amounts Dream rarely saw in anyone else. In fact, the only person Dream could think of sharing the same attributes as Tommy was himself. Dream could recall being similar to the boy in his youth, loud and reckless and powerful with his spark in his eyes and his heart on his sleeve. Dream had taken that energy and put it towards something, and look at him now: leader of a blossoming empire, one of the most respected men to ever live!

Dream could very well take Tommy’s head off with his netherite axe, deal with the consequences as they came, and be done with it.

Or...he could play the long game, coil his threads around Tommy like he had with Eret, bend this roaring flame to his will, and lay waste to all those who dare stand against him. 

He could have  _ control _ over Tommy.

So when Tommy offered the music discs to Dream in return for L’Manburg’s independence, Dream didn’t see a loss of land or a crack in his foundations. No, instead, he saw the first threads of the web he would weave the boy into. 

Through the shattered eye of his mask, Dream looked upon the fire blazing before him and accepted the offering.

With the first threads of his web laid out, a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding shuddered out of his chest, and relief swamped him. 

Control. It had always been about control.

  
  
  
  


Over the next few months, Dream fell into a routine. At dawn each day, he would wake up and go about his usual morning ritual of dressing and eating. Next, he would do a quick border patrol to make sure no monsters had gotten in during the night, looping around the land to finally arrive at the construction site of Eret’s castle. The ‘King’ was always pleased to see him and happily accepted any help or any sweeping bows Dream could offer. Then, it was off to repair damages caused by the war and familiarize himself with the new members of his SMP.

L’Manburg attracted some newcomers of their own. Three unfamiliar faces, Jack Manifold, Niki, and Quackity, all made their home within those blackstone walls. Dream didn’t care so long as they  _ stayed _ within those blackstone walls. They might have been citizens in L’Manburg, but they were little more than strangers in his SMP.

Additionally, Dream kept careful tabs on the whereabouts of the music discs. When he had been in possession of both, he would check his enderchest nearly every day to make sure nothing had gone missing. When Skeppy got his hands on one of the discs, Dream would do frequent check-ins to make sure that his ally was still in possession of it. He couldn’t risk losing the first strings he’d sewn to Tommy.

But several fights, countless trade deals, two hostage situations, three meaningless animal deaths, and one minecart incident later, Dream’s threads were fraying. He lost Spirit’s leather - the only thing he had left to remember his beloved steed - and the last disc in his possession to a scam pulled by that brazen boy. Dream should’ve been more wary during the exchange, should’ve noted that, even with Tommy’s downcast expression as he handed over the leather, the fire in his eyes raged bright as ever.

He needed to remind himself of  _ what _ exactly this boy was,  _ why _ Dream kept him alive despite all the chaos he caused.

As he laid awake the night following the scam, he found that the ache in his chest wasn’t just for Spirit. 

It was for that disc.

Tommy had been a raging fire for as long as Dream had known him. Dream could thread all the strings he wanted, but the boy’s towering flames would eat them right up, travel down the wire, and burn his hands. He needed a different approach.

And in the darkest hours of the morning, Dream knew what he had to do.

It was impossible to control a raging inferno, but deprive a fire of its fuel, and it could be smothered down to nothing but a candle flame, small, feeble,  _ compliant _ .

So that left Dream with one question: if it wasn’t only the discs, then what else fueled the flame that was Tommy Innit?

There were two answers: L’Manburg and his family. 

But Dream couldn’t be the one to take those from him, of course not, because then  _ he _ would be the one with the fire raging on his doorstep. He couldn’t take down that fire singlehandedly, _ no one _ could! Dream had been burned before. Once bitten, twice shy. He would go about this in a more indirect way, pull other threads to cool the flames.

Dream saw his first opportunity when JSchlatt showed up to his endorsement drunk. The man found himself at odds with Wilbur and Tommy. He despised the brothers and wanted nothing more than to wield power unhindered by those who held it before him. 

Schlatt was a businessman, but to Dream, he was nothing more than an opportunity. 

The night before the election results were to be announced, Dream chatted with Schlatt over drinks. Cloaked by simple words and an easy smile, needle and thread stitched through the fabric of Schlatt and fed back to Dream’s hands.

He gave one of these threads an experimental tug.

“Wilbur and Tommy have always been trouble,” Dream commented offhandedly, leaning back in his chair and swirling the whisky in his glass. “Always a pain in my side, even before the revolution.”

Schlatt gave a grunt, messaging his forehead. “‘Specially Tommy, Gods. He’s so fuckin’  _ loud _ , y’know that?” He knocked back his drink and let the glass hit the table with a thud. “Wilbur’s gotta get that kid under control.”

Hiding a grin beneath his cracked porcelain face, Dream pulled a second thread.

“Wilbur has never done anything to try to contain Tommy.” He took a sip and added, “When Tommy first got here, he decided that he didn’t like any of the laws I put up to keep the peace, so he went ahead and broke as many as he could, racking up almost twenty violations in a single  _ week _ . And what did Wilbur do? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” 

Dream made sure to tilt his head to the side a little as he rolled his eyes, for he knew Schlatt wouldn’t see the motion otherwise, and he added a little scoff for good measure. “Frankly, he’s just as guilty as Tommy in my books. He’s negligent.”

“Wilbur’s too caught up in his own little world,” Schlatt grumbled in agreement with his chin in his hand, grabbing the whiskey bottle by the neck with his other to pour himself another round. “He’s got his own plans and don’t give a shit ‘bout anyone else or what they might think or what they might be feelin’.” He dropped the bottle on the table so he could snatch up his drink; Dream wordlessly settled the bottle before it could spill, eyes never leaving Schlatt. “Selfish fuckin’ asshole ‘n his rabid lapdog.”

Oh, the feeling of the threads dancing on Dream’s fingers was euphoric, putting air in his lungs and life into his veins. He had barely drank at all that night, but he didn’t need alcohol to get that pleasant buzz. Clever words tasted sweeter than whisky, after all.

“You shoulda thrown the kid in jail when you had the chance,” Schlatt continued.

Heart drumming a symphony, Dream gave one last yank on his threads.

“Oh, yeah, I did, but he always slipped away. I gave up trying to imprison him ages ago. To be honest, I was right on the verge of kicking him out of the Dream SMP altogether, but then he and Wilbur declared independence - and sure, I lost that war, but you know what?” He laughed, cold and humorless. “Good riddance! It got him and his brother out of my hair in the end, so why should I care?”

Schlatt chuckled lowly. The vibrations it sent up the threads were exactly what Dream was looking for. “Yeah, if they’re outta your hair, then what d’you gotta worry ‘bout?”

Schlatt finished off his drink again. In those yellow slit eyes, Dream could see into the ram’s mind, could see the gears turning.

His vile grin was framed by that curling keratin crown. “Answer’s nothin’, Dream. Nothin’ at all.”

The next day, Dream sat on the edge of a nearby tower and watched the chaos of the election unfold.

  
  
  
  


Contrary to popular belief, Dream knew  _ exactly _ where Pogtopia was. He spent two days searching the forest for it, and when he found it, he spent several hours each week lurking about in the bushes, listening in on Tommy and Wilbur’s conversations. He knew of Technoblade’s appearance and saw the pig-faced brother arrive at the hideout with his own two eyes. He noticed Schlatt’s supposed ‘right hand man’ coming in and out of the woods quite frequently. He learned of the little faction's plans to overthrow the Schlatt Administration.

In their plans, Dream saw his chance to weaken or - better yet - destroy L’Manburg. It took power from Tommy’s flame and gave it to Dream and his SMP.

And so Dream did what he’d been doing: he laid out his threads. He established himself as an ‘asset’ to Pogtopia by joining Tommy in one of his petty skirmishes and providing him with gear. (Dream didn’t care that Sapnap was pissed with him for giving up Mars; Dream got what he wanted in the end.) He spent a good deal of time figuring out what made Technoblade tick and found a couple exploitable weaknesses. He stayed in contact with Schlatt, smiling at his decrees and offering little resistance when he began to expand onto Dream SMP territory. He despised the conman with every bone in his body, but it was important to keep those threads strong.

Soon, his preparations came to fruition. 

Oh, Wilbur might have been a revolutionary, might have been an ambitious visionary with wisdom far beyond his years, but he was not a fire like Tommy Innit. 

He was only a man. 

So when Wilbur went off the deep end, Dream was there to cast his lines and tangle him in his net. Tommy  _ did _ try to burn those threads, but by then it was too late. Wilbur was too far gone. 

With a deal written in gunpowder and smoke, Dream watched as the ex-president of a nation began to sink into a grave of his own making, never to emerge.

The day of the festival arrived. Dream knew Schlatt’s plans. Like he so often did, Dream twirled a thread around his finger as they talked over drinks.

“You know, I’ve heard Techno’s got a pretty powerful crossbow. He could probably do the job for you, clean and simple.”

It was one of the few threads he had on Techno. The usually solitary man couldn’t stand to be under the eyes of countless onlookers.

In a flash of festival rockets, Technoblade found himself on the wrong side of the boy’s fiery rage. 

The stage was set. All Dream had to do was see it through. 

And he did. When the day of reckoning came, Dream and his SMP stood with Schlatt and against Pogtopia. He fought mercilessly, uncaring of the blood he shed. He only stopped for the briefest moment when a vicious sword swing from the flame himself snapped off a chunk of his porcelain face. 

It left his jaw bloodied; it left his mind burned.

Dream answered by bringing his axe down hard enough to shatter concrete, missing the spritely flame by a hair’s breadth.

It didn’t matter to him. In the end, chaos won. The mad ram was dead, making a power vacuum filled by an unexpected individual; the young nation was nothing but a crater once again; the revolutionary-turned-terrorist met his end by his father’s hands; and the anarchist laid waste to the ruins, leaving a bitter taste in everyone’s mouths.

It was just what Dream wanted. With L’Manburg still reeling from the revolt, his SMP swooped in to reclaim any land taken under Schlatt’s administration and then some. With the old king of his SMP gone, Dream instated George as the new figurehead. Did it really matter if there was a monarch in the Dream SMP? No, but he figured it could be useful to have a ‘king’ later on.

In the meantime, Dream kept a careful eye on that inferno of a boy, and delight tingled in his chest as he saw the flame flicker, sigh, and hang his head over the ruins of his nation. Tommy had been betrayed by his eldest brothers, had watched his father murder one of his closest companions, and had witnessed his beloved country be blown to kingdom come for the second time in its war-torn life. 

Dream observed the wavering fire as he sat beside his remaining brother and listened to a music disk. 

Had Dream done it? Had he broken the brazen boy?

...He had not. Tommy Innit lifted his chin, matched the glare of the setting sun with his own flame, and told Tubbo of his hopes for tomorrow. 

Then he looked over his shoulder at Dream and gave him that crickled nose, metal mouth smirk.  _ Nice try, you fuckin’ prick, _ it seemed to say.

Dream turned and walked away. He dismissed the shaking in his hands as muscle strain and the frantic gallop of his heart as leftover adrenalin. 

  
  
  
  


The second youngest of the brothers turned out to be a just ruler. He was calm, collected, polite, objective. Dream felt as though this was the first leader of L’Manburg to  _ actually _ have the nation’s best interests in mind. 

Tubbo was something Dream could work with.

For the first time in years, Dream willingly shed his netherite armor, and he paid a visit to the young nation. He kept his voice light and his words amiable, complimenting Tubbo on his job well done with the country. 

With a warm handshake, Dream coiled his threads around the president.

Though the second war had been devastating to the land, New L’Manburg rose from the ashes on thick wooden pillars and cobblestone pedestals. Life sprang up in the flooded crater, nurtured by the kindly president. The nation was stronger than ever with more allies, more members, and the resolve to grow and flourish. 

And standing in the heart of it all was the flame of Tommy Innit, who was proving to be far more resilient than Dream had anticipated. What more was there that Dream could do to smother that stubborn fire? He was a sixteen year old boy, for the Gods’ sakes! The wars, bloodshed, betrayals, and deaths should have broken him into pieces. It should have left him cold, empty, and afraid.

No, instead it was  _ Dream _ who put on his cracked mask each morning with trembling fingers,  _ Dream _ who couldn’t go anywhere without being armed to the teeth,  _ Dream  _ who barely got a wink of sleep at night, brain alight with images of gore and netherite and  _ fire burning his hands devouring his threads setting his world aflame reducing his life to cinders everything gone gone gone -  _

He…

He needed time to think. 

He needed to get his head back on his shoulders.

He needed Tommy Innit to slow down for a little while.

  
  
  
  


It wasn’t too much later that Dream saw his chance. 

A few weeks after the end of the second war, Tommy went ahead and torched George’s vacation home. Dream saw the scene of the crime himself, and he noted some graffiti written in a very un-Tommy-like way: not all caps or riddled with profanities. He didn’t have a single doubt as to who the accomplice was. During the first portion of Tommy’s trial, Dream gave a pitiful smile at the way that Ranboo’s slender tail swished side to side, and he almost laughed at the way that his pointed ears twitched whenever Dream looked his way. He stuttered his way through the questions that were directed towards him, perspiration dotting his two-toned brow. It was, quite frankly, adorable. And unbelievably entertaining.  _ And _ incredibly obvious.

But Dream didn’t say anything. He wasn’t here to seek justice for George’s house. (No, he and his friend hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms since he declared the man king of his SMP.) He was here to find a way to get that flame under control, and the only person that Tommy seemed to actually listen to was Tubbo. Dream gave himself the upper hand by constructing an obsidian wall that completely encompassed the nation’s major territories.  _ He _ was the one in control of the situation, as he should be. He could wind the threads he’d gently wrapped around the young president, pull and twist them to take advantage of the reasonable, respectful impression he’d made.

Dream was more careful about his requests: not going so high as to dissuade Tubbo, but not going so low as to undermine himself, either.

He eventually decided on three weeks probation. Three weeks without a peep from that unruly flame. Three weeks where Dream could settle his head and come up with a plan. Three weeks where he could get some decent rest without visions of the fire searing the inside of his eyelids.

Sliding a hand beneath his doubly cracked mask, Dream rubbed his eyes with calloused fingers and willed away a migraine. When this meeting was over, he was going home and sleeping for the next twenty-seven hours. Sapnap could cover his patrol rounds for a day or two.

Dream couldn’t deny the relief he felt when Tommy Innit picked up the quill to sign the document. He wasn’t even all that annoyed when the boy started to mess around, making a show of reading the agreement’s ‘fine print’ before putting his signature on it.

But then Tommy was shouting at his friends, and he was demanding that the table be taken away, and he was standing on a chair, and he was looking  _ down  _ on Dream with those blazing eyes of his. 

“My friend, you have  _ nothing _ of mine. But Dream, a long time ago...I got something of  _ yours _ .”

Spirit. His beloved steed.

The boy’s fire-wicked words surrounded him, engulfing him in flames. They seared his head and sent him plunging into a freefall. He was left scrambling for a thread, a string, a thought,  _ anything _ to latch onto. 

But it was true. Dream was not in possession of the discs. L’Manburg was Tommy’s home once again. His family, while fractured, was not gone. 

Dream no longer had power. He no longer had control.

...He truly had nothing on the boy.

And the boy had something on him. 

Dream’s mind, filled with smoke and ash, left his body on autopilot, and he followed the L’Manburgians out of the meeting room to the massive obsidian walls. A pickaxe was shoved into his hands. Laughter and jeers reached him through the ring of fire around him. 

He took the pickaxe and chipped a black stone from the borders. Flecks of obsidian sprinkled out from the impact and dusted over his porcelain face, leaving behind a thousand invisible fissures. Dream raised the pickaxe again, and - 

_ No _ **_._ **

\- he froze. Dropped it. Spun around with static in his ears and fury in his veins.

No, he would  _ not _ bow to the will of Tommy Innit, he would  _ not _ allow himself to be devoured by the flame,  **_HE WAS NOT AFRAID OF THE BOY, GODS DAMMIT!_ **

Dream ground his jaw, stormed forward, grabbed the flame by the collar of his shirt and snarled, “Tommy, listen - you  _ fucked up  _ this time...”

He screamed. He didn’t  _ care _ who heard it, he didn’t  _ care _ that it left his throat raw, he didn’t  _ care _ that words flew from his mouth faster than he could filter them. He. Didn’t. _Care_.

The only thing he cared about was his power over Tommy. His discs, his nation, his family - who gave a shit what it was. All that mattered was that controlling the fate of those things controlled the flame of Tommy Innit. 

Nothing else mattered.

“Really?  _ Really?  _ So if I burn Spirit right now - ”

“BURN SPIRIT RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, RIGHT NOW!”

Nothing.

“W-Well this is the only thing you’ve had attachment to this entire time. How do I know you’re not fucking lying?”

There was a waver in his words, a flicker in that flame. Dream’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of it.

He pressed onward.

“I have attachment to your discs.”

“Why would you care - why would - they’re my discs! Why do you even care about them - ?”

“No no, Tommy…”

He stepped forward. He relished at the sight of the flame taking a small step back.

“...They’re  _ my _ discs.”

For the first time ever, Tommy Innit had no response. The flame wavered under a cool breath of fear.

Cautiously, Dream sent out a thread...

“I will get them, I will put them in my enderchest, and I will keep them there until the end of time itself.”

...It coiled around the boy with little resistance. No fire came to burn Dream away.

At long last, the flame of Tommy Innit was within his reach.

He had control.

“Tubbo…”

He had control.

“...if he is not  _ exiled _ in three days…”

He had control.

“...I’ll do what I said.”

He had control.

“L’Manburg can be independent, but L’Manburg can’t be free.”

_ He had control. _

And he knew what the president’s decision would be, even before the president himself did. 

  
  
  
  


It was only fitting that it rained the evening that the flame began to fade.

Standing atop the obsidian wall, Tubbo took a deep breath and gave Dream his final verdict. Dream couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his lips when he saw Tommy’s smug expression fade into a pallor. The other officials of L’Manburg, Tommy’s friends, shouted their objections and claimed a betrayal of their trust.

The flame uttered nothing but a soft, broken, “...T-Tubbo?”

And the president gave him no reply. He kept his eyes on Dream’s cracked porcelain and said, “Dream, please detain and escort Tommy Innit out of my country.”

Dream had never been so happy to carry out an order in his life. He grabbed the sputtering flame by his wrist and dragged him away from his home. The lack of resistance sent a heady rush of glee through Dream, and he had to muffle his chuckles with the back of his hand. Here, at long last, was what he’d been working towards: a lonely, flickering flame. He could coil as many threads around the boy as he wanted. He could twist them, weave them; he could cage that spark and make something to be used - a matchstick for his gasoline. 

With the flame of Tommy Innit on his side, he would be unstoppable. He could burn every faction that stood in his way, raze their lands, devour their blood in hellfire, leave little more than dust and bones. 

He could recreate the world so it was just how it started: simple, a land for him to make his own.

Fear would be nothing but a memory. 

Dream took the flame far away from his hearth, putting almost an entire day’s worth of ocean between them. During the journey to exile, Tommy chatted with Ghostbur - who had decided to tag along - and continuously spewed profanities at Dream’s back, ranting and raging. (“What the FUCK I hate you SO MUCH your green fuckin’ face is SO UGLY - !”)

Dream had no concerns about the phantom’s presence. Even in death, Wilbur Soot remained one of the easiest people Dream wove into his web. What  _ was _ concerning, however, was the fact that Tommy’s flame was growing with every hour, the sparks of defiance catching on the tinder his insults and sneers provided. It lapped at Dream’s threads, sending heat up the wires.

Dream ignored the flame, ignored the perpetual tremble in his battle-worn hands.

When they made landfall at the site of Tommy’s exile, the heavens had not stopped their lament, but the flame had not stopped his crackling and popping either. Dream brought the brazen boy up the shore to the field of untouched grass and had him wait in the cold and rain while he himself dug out a shallow pit. Once the hole had been excavated, he stuck his spade into the dirt beside it and folded his arms.

“Put your stuff in the pit.”

Tommy sputtered, clenching his fists as he dared to take a step forward. “No way, these are my things!”

“Drop ‘em down,” Dream pressed, nodding to the hole.

“Or what?”

“Or I will kill you.”

Tommy glowered, bared his teeth. “I don’t care.”

Dream tugged at one of his new threads:  _ Oh yes you do. _

Without giving the boy the chance to think, Dream lunged forward with his gilded netherite axe and swung it so the gleaming blade missed Tommy’s jugular by less than an inch.

A cloudy breath rushed out of the boy, and he scrambled to unclip his shoddy armor. “Okay, okay, okay, okay…”

Dream smiled as the thread remained unburned; his tremor-wracked grip steadied. 

Just like that, the flame was corralled. Tommy dumped his things in the pit, Dream lit up a stick of dynamite and tossed it in, and the gear was reduced to cold, smoldering pieces hissing pain in the rainfall. 

Then, Dream reached into his own bag of supplies and held out a pouch of rations. He didn’t need Tommy starving to death within his first few weeks of his exile. “You can have this.” 

Tommy smacked the rations out of his hand. The drawstring came loose, and the dried meat and bread was scattered across the sorrow-soaked earth, ruined. “I don’t want your fuckin’ pitty shit! Fuck you! Fuck you,  _ leave _ ! Fuck you!” 

In any other situation, Dream would have grown frustrated at the stubborn spark that refused to comply, but he could see the way Tommy’s body shuddered from something other than the cold of the rain, could see the way his face went all red and could hear those unshed tears.

The flame was on its way out. 

  
  
  
  


Reducing the flame of Tommy Innit was a slow, careful process. There was almost an art to it, dancing his threads around the flame, a liontamer breaking in his newly-caught beast. Dream had to choose his words carefully, had to twist his coils just so. He had to first get the boy to tolerate his presence, then enjoy his presence, then  _ seek  _ his presence. He needed Tommy to trust him.

When he wasn’t watching over the flame, he was off working with Sam, a relatively new member of the Badlands. Dream had commissioned the engineer to construct him a supermax prison along the coastline, and he happily accepted, claiming he would enjoy the challenge. Dream himself wasn’t fluent in the language of redstone, but he spent several long days and nights with Sam shooting ideas back and forth, trying to see what was possible and what was not. He helped draw the conceptual blueprints and gathered the resources needed, but the rest was up to the engineer. 

When asked what the prison was for, Dream just offered a simple, “It will be for someone capable.”

He made sure the walls were constructed of pure blackstone. Fire could not burn through something that was forged in Hell itself, after all.

Dream’s life was run by a five day cycle. The first two days were spent in exile - or, ‘Logsteadshire’, as it was now known - with Tommy, including travel between there and the mainland via the precariously constructed Nether highway. He spent the third day evaluating the progress Sam had made and gathering any materials he was in need of. The fourth and fifth days were spent checking in with his SMP. He had put Punz in charge for the times he was away, and he was pleased to see that the man was doing a good job of keeping everything up and running. 

Unfortunately, Dream’s frequent absences meant that his SMP wasn’t quite as strong as it used to be. Whenever Dream was present, a majority of his time was spent squashing any smaller factions that were attempting to pull off the same thing L’Manburg had succeeded to do a couple years back. New ‘nations’ sprang up left and right.

It didn’t matter, though. They didn’t have a flame like L’Manburg had back then. Dream put a stop to each and every revolt, sometimes wiping them out single handedly, no allies to call his own besides his gilded axe and his cracked porcelain face.

There was also the matter of kingship. After what had to be a thousandth nasty argument with the current monarch, Dream resorted to snatching the crown from his ungrateful head and tossing it back at the feet of Eret, who was glad to take up the title once more. Eret immediately instituted a royal guard and began to help Dream maintain peace - what the king was  _ supposed _ to be doing.

It was late one night, many weeks later, when he was approached by his closest allies. He had just gotten to his room and was in the middle of dressing a wound running down the length of his forearm. With the possibility of infection now looming, he wasn’t exactly in the best of moods.

“Leave,” he told Sapnap and George as he balled up a bloody washcloth, tossed it aside, and reached for the bottle of antiseptic solution that had made its home on his bedside table. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

They didn’t listen (typical) and entered his room. “Dream, what...what happened to your arm?” he heard George murmur.

“Zombie horde caught me by surprise on the way back from L’Manburg.” He took a cotton ball and doused it with a generous amount of the potent chemical, spilling a little of it over his fingers in his rush. “Some of the torches along the eastern side of the Prime Path have been destroyed. You guys need to go check that out. Punz should know where the supplies are.”

Dream took their silence as confirmation and began to dab at the sensitive flesh with the cotton ball, hissing softly at the sting. 

Sapnap spoke up: “Woah, dude, your hands are  _ shaking _ .” He stepped forward and grabbed Dream by the wrist. “Let me - ”

Dream yanked his arm out of his hold with a light snarl. “I can handle this on my own.”

“But you don’t have to.”

“Quit fussing over me - ”

“I’m not  _ fussing _ , I’m just - ”

“Get out of my room,” Dream cut him off, shooting him a look out of the corner of his eye even though he knew Sapnap couldn’t see it through the porcelain mask. “I’ve got things to do. You and George go take care of the torch problem.”

Dream returned his attention to his arm and continued to dab the wound, ignoring the discomfort it caused. 

...Thirty seconds later, neither of them had moved. Dream heaved an aggravated sigh and turned to face them, letting his arms drop. “What do you  _ want _ ?” he bit out.

“We…” George began, but he trailed off. A few seconds later, he tried again. “...Dream, we were wondering when you last slept. Like,  _ actually _ slept.”

Dream narrowed his eyes at him. “And you care... _ why _ exactly _? _ ”

“Because we’re your friends,” said Sapnap, folding his arms, “and we’re allowed to be worried about you.”

“Yeah?” Dream scoffed. He finished cleaning up the wound and tossed the cotton ball in the general direction of the trash bin. “Well, there’s nothing to be worried about, so don’t waste your time.” He turned his back on them to rummage through the first aid kit, searching for fresh gauze and bandages. “Now are you guys gonna go sort out that torch problem or - ?”

“Forget about the damn torches, Dream!” Sapnap exploded. He stepped forward, grabbed Dream by the shoulders, and spun him around so he faced the both of them.

Dream shoved Sapnap’s hands away, rolling his eyes. “Oh, come on, was that really necessary - ?”

“What the hell is your deal?”

“My deal?” Dream echoed with a raise of an eyebrow.

“You’ve been acting off for weeks,” George explained. “Months actually.” He took a step forward, something in his expression pleading. “You’re...not yourself.”

“If this is about the kingship, George, I already told you that you’re officially relieved from your duties - ”

“Dream, do you even  _ hear _ what we’re saying to you?” Sapnap interrupted him. Dream saw him try to catch his eye through the mask but didn’t quite hit the mark.

Dream heaved a sigh, exhaustion from the day creeping up on him. “Look, I’m tired, I have more important things to be dealing with right now, so either get to the point or  _ get out _ .”

They left, in the end, each sparing him a backwards glance that spoke of things he couldn’t decipher. Dream stood in the center of his room, an equally undefinable ache in his chest. He felt as though he should’ve known what it all meant. 

Perhaps it would have meant something a long time ago.

  
  
  
  


Taming the flame was a slow but steady process. Though Tommy still despised him, the boy was lonely out there in exile, and the flippant phantom could hardly be called good company. The only real person he ever saw was Dream. The boy started hanging around outside the Logsteadshire Nether portal whenever Dream was supposed to visit, and then he started meeting Dream halfway on the Nether highways, and then he started to wait for him by the portal to the Dream SMP.

Tommy always made sure to stand in the center of the paths ever since that incident towards the beginning of his exile when Dream caught him peering over the ledge into the lava below. Despite the ambient light of the Nether, the fire in his eyes had simmered the lowest Dream had ever seen.

(“It’s not your time to die yet, Tommy,” Dream told him with a sharp twist of his thread and a violent yank on his wrist.

The flame breathed out the smoke. “It’s never my time to die.”)

Just as Dream suspected, compliance came with enough time and patience. Dream couldn’t explain the swell of excitement he got when he saw the flame dump all his gear on the ground for the first time without needing to be asked. It was progress, a huge step in the right direction. Dream’s goal was within reach.

Following that development, it was laughably easy to tug the threads, play the flame like a fiddle. Tommy didn’t suspect a thing when Dream said that Ghostbur sent out the invites. (He didn’t - Dream had made sure of it.) Tommy didn’t even question it when Dream told him that Tubbo threw away his compass. (He didn’t - it’d been lost by accident.)

Dream’s word became gospel.

“They don’t want you, Tommy.” 

And the boy attended the sermons.

“They… They don’t?”

There was no insulting, no swearing, no shouting.

“Of course not.”

No resistance.

“...Oh.”

Only acceptance, bitter and  _ cold _ .

And still, Tommy Innit smiled at Dream whenever he came for a visit.

  
  
  
  


Though it was technically wintertime, it was far too warm in the Dream SMP and the surrounding territories for it to snow. The closest they got were weeks straight of cold, windy rain. 

It was a good thing he was used to the weather, for Sam had reached a critical point in the prison’s development, and Dream had to spend the next several days out in the elements to help him test the security system on the entrance and exit. The engineer complained that the rain ruined the redstone and slowed down the process. To aid Sam as he grappled with the uncooperative weather, Dream made frequent trips to the Nether to pick up more quartz for replacement components, and he helped him erect tarp tents to shield the wiring.

They eventually wrapped up the first round of tests, and everything built so far was running smoothly. Dream took a moment to catch his breath as he used a towel to wipe off the redstone dust that clung to his armor and clothes. Nearby, Sam was seated at the workbench, looking over the blueprints for phase two of the project. The only way to tell that the weather was still stormy outside was by the muffled rumble of thunder that managed to roll through the massive walls.

“ _ Gods _ , this is a work of art,” the engineer sighed, smiling around the pencil he was chewing on. “I don’t think anything so intricate has ever been built before, Dream.”

“It  _ is _ ambitious,” Dream agreed.

“I can hardly wait for it to be completed. This is gonna go down in Dream SMP history, and the Badlands will have played a part in it.”

“How are we doing on time?” 

“Uhhmmm…” Sam glanced over the rest of the sketches. “I’d give it three weeks before we have to do a second round of tests, which’ll take a few days; and when we’re done with all that, it’ll be  _ another _ three weeks before we do the last round of tests, so assuming nothing goes terribly wrong...we’re looking at a little under eight weeks.”

Dream hummed. “...I want it done in four.”

He heard the engineer drop his pencil. “I-I’m sorry, did...did you say  _ four _ ? As in  _ four _ weeks?”

Dream cocked his head at him. “Would you rather it be four days?”

“No! No, of course not, it’s just...” Sam ran a hand through his hair, stared down at the blueprints. “...it’s just not possible. That’s not  _ nearly _ enough time.” 

“I have a target that needs to be imprisoned, and I need him imprisoned ASAP.” 

Sam fiddled with his creeper mask. “Uh, can’t you, I-I dunno, put him somewhere else until the prison is complete?”

“Trust me, I’ve tried to contain him in the past, but he always slipped through my fingers. Now I believe - no, actually, I  _ know _ I have him right where I want him, but I don’t have the kind of cell I need in order to keep him locked up.”

“But the construction process needs to be careful and thorough,” Sam prattled on, hurriedly flipping through his blueprints, “or else we could run into complications or system failures, a-and, really, I’m sure there’s no need to rush this so much - ”

“To be honest with you, Sam,” continued Dream, dropping the towel into a crate and going to fetch his weapons and tools, “I needed this done  _ ages _ ago.”

He picked up his pickaxe and strapped it to his back.

“However, I was a little caught up in the business of the citizens of a particularly war-prone nation...”

He picked up his battleaxe and made a show of looking over the blade, twirling it around in his hand.

“...Those smaller factions and their members can be a  _ real _ pain in my side sometimes, you know? I’ve had to take out  _ so many _ ‘revolutionaries’ recently for disturbing the peace, causing trouble, threatening my territories...”

When he turned, he found that the Badlander sat rigid in his chair, fingers curled into the wood of the workbench. 

“...flouting my authority and questioning my methods.”

Sam swallowed thickly. “That’s… That’s unfortunate.”

Dream grinned beneath his mask, and he strapped his axe to his back as well. “Tell you what, Sam: I’ll extend it to five weeks, and if you are  _ done _ in five weeks, all credit will go to you. Think about it. Would you rather have your name stamped alongside someone else’s on a project built in a mediocre amount of time, or would you rather be the sole engineer of an incredible redstone masterpiece built in a  _ fraction _ of the time for a machine of its caliber?”

He pulled his cloak over his shoulders and approached the workbench, threads dancing around him. “You said it yourself, Sam: this is going down in history. This prison could very well put you and the Badlands on the map. Let’s help each other out.” 

He extended a hand.

“Do we have a deal?”

Dream didn’t need to see Sam’s face to know he was beaming from ear to ear.

  
  
  
  


More weeks went by. The only people from the mainland Dream really spoke with were Sam and Punz, sometimes Tubbo if Dream had to pay a visit to the nation down the road. He had long since torn down the obsidian walls; his SMP and L’Manburg were on relatively good terms. 

Revolts slowed to a halt. Peace prospered. Sleep came a little easier. 

Meanwhile, the threads had been woven around Tommy so tightly now that struggling against their hold was futile, and he was running out of energy, fading fast. A fly caught in the web of a brown recluse could only fight for so long. A flame could only withstand the downpour for a given time before it was nothing but smokey embers. And Dream was close, so,  _ so _ close to reducing this flame to embers.

Things were looking up.

...At least, that’s what he  _ thought _ .

During one of his visits to the flame, he found  _ chests _ !  _ Chests _ hidden under Logsteadshire, chock-full of gear and weapons! 

Oh, so that moronic, shortsighted child really thought he could get the upper hand on  _ him _ , the man who put him there in the first place? Tommy should’ve understood by now that Dream was  _ untouchable _ , the puppeteer with a porcelain grin who twisted the will of even the purest of men; Tommy should’ve cowered at the thought of trying to hide anything from him, shuddered at the sight of that netherite axe turned against him.

...Dream should’ve felt a calm, uncaring beat in his chest when he found those boxes filled with supplies; Dream should’ve known that he had control over the flame and there was no reason to tremble.

...It was rage. Anger. Frustration. That’s what it was. That’s why his hands shook and refused to still. 

So he put them to work. 

“The rules were simple, Tommy,” he said to the boy, slamming the chest shut and clamoring up the ladder. 

“Dream - ”

“I just wanted your stuff each day, and I didn’t even take it one or two days! But no, you always have to...to wiggle your way out and  _ defy _ me.” Thunder from a storm somewhere in the distance rumbled up the shore as Dream marched out of the shed to the entrance of Logsteadshire, Tommy trailing close behind. “You never  _ listen _ .”

“But - but Dream, I just - ! I wouldn’t - !” 

“And to be honest, Tommy…” Dream carried on, producing a set of flint and steel and a bundle of TNT from his bag. “...I’m  _ sick _ of it.”

“No… No! Stop, please!” Tommy grabbed Dream by the sleeve of his hoodie, peered up at him through teary eyes. “I’m sorry, please, this is - this is all I have! It won’t happen again, I swear! I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, Dream.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.” Dream yanked his arm out of the boy’s desperate grip and lit the explosive. He tossed it in - 

“NO!”

\- and the walls of Logsteadshire burst outward, pelting them both with wood chips and stone, scratching up Dream’s porcelain mask. Tommy flinched back at the sound, then rushed forward through the smoke and ash. He knelt on the ledge of the pit, reaching in as if he could save those smoldering remains settled at the bottom. 

It was quiet in the ruins of Logsteadshire save from the wet, choking sobs of the feeble flame.

Dream watched his step as he strolled over the ruined earth and came to stand at Tommy’s side. He got down on one knee, put a gentle hand between the boy’s shoulder blades. Tommy Innit looked up at him, and Dream, for the first time ever, was not seared by his gaze. There was only a dying ember of that flame, a glint of misplaced hope. 

It was the most alluring thing he’d ever seen.

“...D...Dream?”

He sighed softly, ran his hand up and down Tommy’s back, settling, soothing - twirling the coiled threads, pulling the strings tighter.

“...You can't go to the nether. No one can come and visit you until you learn to listen.”

“I-I - ”

“I exiled you for a reason,  _ Tubbo _ exiled you for a reason.  _ You _ didn’t listen to the rules then, and you didn’t listen to them now, over here with your  _ secret stash _ and your tools - ”

“But I wasn’t planning on - on going for very much longer,” the boy sputtered, hardly understandable behind his tears, “and - and it’s not your fault, no, not at all, it’s - it’s my fault, I’m sorry, I just wanted - ”

“Tommy,  _ Tommy… _ ” Dream chuckled. “Did you  _ really _ think you could get the jump on me?”

Tommy’s eyes went wide, and there it was: the fear the boy should have at the very thought of opposing him. “No, Dream, I would never - ”

“That’s right. You wouldn’t.  _ Can’t _ .” Dream stood and pulled his hand away, but that tangle of threads remained coiled around the boy. “You will stay here, and you will start over. Try to pull anything like that again, and I won’t be so lenient. Do you understand?”

Tommy sniffled. “Yes, Dream.”

He left through the Nether portal, placing a slow-burning bundle of explosives at the foot of the threshold to go off once he was through to the other side, effectively destroying the gateway and leaving the boy completely cut off from the mainland. The last thing Dream saw before being whisked away to the Nether were the clouds looming over the ocean, lightning flickering on the horizon. 

On his way back to his SMP, he made a stop by the prison and told Sam to put his focus on finishing the solitary confinement cell; Sam promised to have it done within a week.

  
  
  
  


The heavens seethed when Dream returned to exile five days later. He arrived there by a second Nether portal tucked away in the forest nearby. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head to shield himself from the torrential downpour. Gilded axe in hand, Dream set off into the stormy night to find the withering boy and drag him to the prison on the coastline.

When he got to the ruins of Logsteadshire, the sight of a teetering, sky-crawling pillar greeted him. 

No… After all this time, after all his work, had he really just... _ lost _ the flame?

Grinding his jaw against the galloping in his chest, Dream sprinted up the rain-slicked slope and came to the base of the tower. Lighting forked across the sky and struck the ground somewhere down the field, setting fire to the grass and illuminating the scene in a flash of white light. He saw rotted wood tools scattered about, scraps of paper drifting in puddles, a torn up shoe laying in the mud.

However, there was no body, no sign of the remains of Tommy Innit anywhere.

...The flame wasn’t dead.

But Dream didn’t know where he’d gone.

A low, maddened growl rumbled out of his chest, he bared his teeth at the heavens, and he howled his fury at the Gods above. 

“FUCK!”

The flame was supposed to be  _ his _ ! The boy was supposed to be feeble, bend to  _ his _ will! For years now, he had woven his web of careful threads in just the right way to control Tommy Innit and weaken that incessant fire.  _ How on Earth _ was he not yet smothered - ?!

A clap of thunder rumbled a warning, and a boom deafened his thoughts. Dream cried out as he was thrown forward by a shockwave behind him, eyes seared by a blinding flash of light before he crashed full-body into the mud and stones below. Over the ringing in his ears, he heard a tinkling shatter, and pain burst over his face. 

Dream shoved himself off his chest with a groan and looked down at the mess of porcelain and blood beneath him. He tasted metal and dirt on his lips.

There was an immense heat rolling over his back. When he turned around, he realized what had happened - lightning had struck the forest, and the resulting explosion had thrown him. A tree was now up in flames. 

...And despite the rain mercilessly beating the earth and the ocean wind shrieking through the woods, the inferno raged, beautiful, bright, and terrifying.

Dream trembled as he got up and steadied himself on a tree. Then, he picked up his axe, turned, and left. He heard the remains of his porcelain face crunch under his boots. 

Tommy Innit might still be burning, but Dream still had his coils around him. 

Dream would find him, pull him back by the threads, and smother that stubborn little flame himself. 

He didn’t care if he got burned in the process. In the end, all that mattered was control.

It had always been about control.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! Have some angst! :D
> 
> Sorry if this fic is a hot mess. This type of narrator/POV is completely out of my comfort zone, but I got this idea and I HAD to write it up (this basically stemmed from Tommy's little realization of "Dream is afraid of me," and spiraled from there). This is my hot take on Dream's character on the DSMP and what his motives might be. It's just a theory though, and this is probably not what's it's gonna turn out to be in DSMP canon. Still, it was very fun to write.
> 
> For those of you who're following my other fic, I'm still on break, and tEotB will be back on January 1st. Thanks for your patience!
> 
> Anyway, comments and kudos are much appreciated. Have a lovely holiday y'all! <3


End file.
